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I have something stuck in my craw that has been stuck there for quite some time. Charlatans, posing as psychics, that convince their victims there is a curse on them, and then milk the client for hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars. Now I have been in the psychic business for over twenty years, I am damn good at it and have even been voted Nashville’s Best Tarot Reader, my client list is long and stellar. I have read for thousands of people. In those twenty years I have rarely ever found that a person who came to me actually had a curse or a hex on them. Folks it just don’t happen, at least not with any great degree of frequency. It’s like worrying that you are gonna get Ebola, the odds are very good you won’t. Frankly the odds are better that you will get killed by a terrorist or hit by a meteor or struck by lightning.

Most of the time when a person comes to visit a psychic, they have some sort of a problem. They are worried, or scared or sad. They want help. Those people are sitting ducks for the unscrupulous. So they come to the psychic, who in a mysterious voice tells them what the problem is; ( Que the bad lighting, creepy room and voice of doom)…”You have a curse on you.” The customer believes this claptrap because after all, life is currently sucking very much and bad things keep happening and there is no logical answer. Right? Wrong. The logical answer to a run of bad luck is not that you have a curse on you. Sometimes back luck happens, and we get pissed and depressed and like attracts like. We keep emphasizing that life sucks, we can’t catch a break and things just won’t get better. We keep putting it out to the Universe that things are terrible, and they just keep being terrible. Not because there is a curse, but because we are continuing to speak it, concentrating on the negative, creating it, and bringing it to us. Energy goes where thought flows. What you speak you create. Really. Why do you think that in all the old stories and legends, the magician used “Magic Words”? Because words are powerful.

But the faux psychic (I dislike using the word psychic for anyone who takes advantage of people) convinces you there is a curse and that is why you lost your job, got evicted, your car broke down and you boyfriend ran off with your best friend. Of course that is the answer, so you pay the psychic for prayers on your behalf, candles burned in your name, an oil concoction to wear and so forth and so on. Sometimes, you pay for the psychic to get new clothes to wear while he/she is doing the curse removing ritual for you. I know one person who bought a new dishwasher so that the psychic could wash bottles for the oil in a dishwasher that had never been used.

Now you might think that all this sounds crazy. It is desperate. Sometimes in your life things get so terrible that you will go anywhere for help and relief. But, if the psychic you find wants more money then the advertised price of a reading, run, do not walk to the nearest exit. I don’t care how convincing he or she is, or how much they know about your life and your psyche or even your dead grandmother, you are are being scammed.

Every week for the past twenty-two years I have had calls to my business asking for help from some unfortunate soul who ran afoul of the faux-psychic scammer. Then I have to read for that victim, decide if there is a problem or not, and advise that person on how to proceed. Most of them are scared and nervous of me and of the revenge of the scammer. They have frequently been told that if they do not follow the faux-psychic’s instructions to the letter then things will only get worse.

In most states, the law will not prosecute this kind of scam. I’m not sure why, but it may have to do with not wanting to open a can of worms that might have anything to do with faith. It may also have everything to do with the law not wanting to be be bothered with anyone stupid enough to go to a psychic. After all, not everyone believes in us. Hard to believe, I know but there it is. I have had people come in, sit down for a reading and tell me that don’t believe I have any ability to tell them anything. Takes all kinds, right? Another reason that legal folks may want nothing to do with the faux-psychic scammers is that this kind of thing is hard to prove, rather a he said/she said situation. Regardless of why, if you get your hard earned money taken by one of these folks, you can expect precious little help from the authorities. Therefore you must protect yourself. Before you go for a psychic reading ask your friends who they use, Google “Best Psychic” in your area, call some of the metaphysical shops in your area usually they employ reputable folks. Do not go to a place that has a BIG RED HAND in the window.

Have I found clients who have had work done on them of a malevolent nature? I have, but very few. If I find evidence of a curse or a hex, then I give that person the instructions on how to remove the curse and the effects of it from their life. Keep in mind that unless you have pissed off a practicing expert of the dark arts, the hex or spells that most people can conjure are fairly weak and will wear off in time. What happens is that the victim concentrates on the bad stuff that is happening to them and that just pulls in more bad stuff. The first question that I ask a person who shows up in my shop convinced they have been cursed is; “Who have you pissed off?” If they can’t think of anyone whom they have pissed off enough to curse them then I tell then there is no curse and we can move on from there.

As a side note, no one can do a spell for you that will be as effective as one you can do for yourself. Why is that? Very simple. No one can be as emotionally invested in your problem as you. Spells, like prayers, are fueled by emotion. The situation is yours, you are emotionally vested in the outcome, therefore you and any only you can pour the juice into the spell to make it work! Don’t pay anyone to do spells for you or say prayers for you. Do it yourself. If you don’t know how, reach out to someone who does, read, Google. I have turned down a lot of money over the years from folks who wanted me to do spells for them. Hell, maybe I’m stupid. But I sleep alright.

In short, protect yourself; wear a rain coat on cloudy days, take your vitamins, don’t eat fried food, use a condom and do your homework before you go to a psychic. You’ll thank me for this.

So I have had a strange offer, and get your minds out of the gutter, it’s not that kind of an offer. A producer wants to tape a reality show pilot about life in a metaphysical shop. At first I thought I would be crazy to do such a thing, then I called a few psychics that I know and asked them to read for me. Dorothy Morrison in Virginia told me I was crazy not to do it. Kim Diamond in Vegas saw money and she wants in. Star in Asheville saw goods things as well but cautioned me to get an entertainment lawyer.

So now I have said yes we will be willing to be filmed, I have committed to this thing and I can’t sleep at night. I want it to go well, I want all of us who work here to appear smart and real. That is the problem, reality TV really isn’t very real you know. It also has a tendency to make fun of people or to make people look stupid, it has to have drama. I can only hope that the drama that passes through our doors every day will be enough to make the producers and ultimately the audience happy. But I know that in truth we are competing with the Honey Boo-Boos and duck calls guys and any number of other really stupid programs that pass for entertainment in this world. I don’t think we can be so vapid. At least I sincerely hope not.

My children all want to participate,thank god I thought they might run away and change their names. My cousin wants to come up from Atlanta and partner with my son-in-law so they can set up in a corner of the shop and be the two grumpy old men from the Muppet Show. They could totally pull that off too because they are hysterical. Those two alone would make the show worth watching.

Still I am a bit put off by some of the questions that have been asked by the producers I have spoken with such as; “This is a family owned business how do you all get along? Do you fight and argue? Does anyone ever storm out after an argument? Do you yell at each other or call each other names?” After a few stunned seconds of thought I answer, “Uh no, this is a family owned business and we all have our ideas of how things need to be done but really this is a metaphysical, spiritual business and we try to be peaceful.” I am almost sure this is not the droids they are looking for, you know?

Maybe I am getting as bit ahead of myself here, the pilot might not sell, it could be that no one will watch it, we might suck. I think we are funny and entertaining and our customers are interesting. But let’s face it, we ain’t the Kardashians, thanks god. Still, I am excited and nervous. We are running around the shop like crazy people; cleaning, painting, rearranging and moving things into different configurations.

I guess no matter what happens, the shop will be clean and all the projects that I have been meaning to get to will be gotten too. And maybe, just maybe, we will all get famous instead of being so damn infamous as we are now!

I think I am finally recovered from the six days I spend in the woods at the Pagan Unity Festival last week-end. I am still a little tired and I attribute that to being old. We bought stuff, packed stuff, hauled stuff, herded people, danced, sang, went to class, cooked, bought more stuff, laughed and cried.

I believe that it is the finest thing that I do. Every year people come to me and tell me how their lives have been forever altered because they spent a week-end at PUF. That makes me cry and makes my heart leap up in joy. It is why we bust our humps every year for months in advance and try and figure out ways to correct out flaws for months afterward.

For those of you who have never gone to a Pagan festival, it is several days of workshops, rituals, food, music and silliness. We had amazing authors and workshop facilitators this year, as we do every year. We are a kid friendly, family oriented festival, but after midnight all the folks under 18 are chased away from the bonfire so the adults can dance and get silly.

Did we make everyone happy? No we did not but we tried. Did we drop a few things between the cracks? Yes we did. We are working to fix the problems and make PUF even better next year.

Thanks to my amazing staff, without you there is no PUF. Know that you change people’s lives and give them hope and joy. That is mighty and so are you all.

Thanks to everyone who presented a workshop, they were all wonderful and people loved them.

I was invited by the good folks at Spirit of the Earth Church to their West Kentucky Hoodoo Festival, to present a workshop on magickal workings, since I have written a book on the subject; Spell It Correctly. The drive up was easy, the sun was shining, the directions perfect and I went right to the site with no trouble at all. The gathering was on a farm that belongs to one of the members of SOTE, it is a beautiful place! I presented the workshop, had a good response and was invited to stay for dinner, which I did. I never turn down food. David Clark told me that the organization of the festival was my handiwork since he, his wife Nancie and the other members of the group used my first book Chasing the Rainbow to design their festival. I was overwhelmed by that, it is a good thing to know that something that you have written actually does someone some good. I took my leave, reluctantly, of the fine folks of SOTE so I could get home before the sun went down. My reasons were two-fold; I have such a lousy sense of direction and I don’t see well at night. Before you tell me the reason I can’t see is because I’m old, let me just tell you that I have been night blind forever. I scared my first husband almost to death on a trip between Baton Rouge and Nashville…but I digress. Anyway I left confident that I could retrace my steps. I was so very wrong. I even had a huge landmark that looks like the Washington Memorial to guide me, I saw it on my way to the site, I just knew I couldn’t miss it, the monument is tall and the land is flat. I missed it. I drove and drove and drove. In that part of Kentucky there are no stores and no gas stations and no people. Just lots and lots of land. What I desperately needed was a gas station. As I drove on with the sun setting behind me, my gas gauge dropping and no gas stations or signs of civilization in front of me, my panic began to set in for real. I also realized something; there are no gas stations in Amish country because they don’t need gas stations. If only I could have have powered my car on horse manure I would have been in business as there was lots of that along the sides of the road. When the sun set I began to pray; oh please don’t let me run out of gas out here, I have no bars to call AAA, they would never find me anyway. Maybe Amish folks would find me, take pity on me and let me sleep in their barn because I was in trouble. Finally after what seemed like hours I saw lights in the distance and came to a cross roads! Hallelujah I was saved! I had to figure out how to get off the highway I was on and down to the road where I saw the lights. It was a lonely little gas station but it was at that moment, the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I pulled up, filled my tank never even looking at the price per gallon, I didn’t care. I went inside to ask directions and got them from a very nice young man with a very thick Indian accent. I smiled and thanked him and left as lost as when I had arrived. I tried to follow the directions he had given and continued to be lost but at least I was in a town. I just didn’t know which one. I found another gas station with lots of people in it, I just knew I could get directions. I was right, everyone in the place was more that happy to give me directions to Nashville. The nice redneck, the fellow in dreadlocks and the kind Hispanic man all gave me directions. I smiled harder and when I left I waved at the Hispanic gentleman who was riding away on a kid’s bike carrying a twelve park of Busch beer under one arm, I admired his balance. I drove away into the night and by following the directions of all three men found myself at the very same gas station again. I tried again and this time I ended up at a Walgreen’s where I accosted a lady in the parking lot for directions, she gave them and I tried again. And failed again. Then it hit me, I had a new phone! Maybe just maybe there was GPS, the only trick was finding it. My track record in finding things at that point was pretty low. But I pulled over and frantically went through my phone and found GPS. I programmed in Nashville and lo and behold a map appeared and the computer voice told me to turn left. I did with new hope which was quickly dashed when I went right back to the same gas station that I had visited twice before. I tried again and again and it might have just been my imagination but I thought the computer voice sounded irritated the sixth time it said ‘recalculating’. I got home that night, late, I did call my husband so he wouldn’t worry as soon as I had bars. To give you perspective on the trip; I left Nashville on I-24 and went through Clarksville, I came home on I-65 from Bowling Green. I’m gonna hire a driver.

So you think writing is easy work huh? You think it’s all about throwing words at paper and then you go have a smoke and a glass of bourbon right? Well let me tell you a thing or two about that. Writing is for crazy people. First you have some sort of an idea and then you put it on paper, or a screen in my case, then you read it to yourself, then you criticize your words, then you delete everything, then you rewrite it because the idea in your head won’t go away until you write it down, then you read it and rewrite again and again and again. Did you know that writers also seem to be anal retentive perfectionists too. True, we are. Oh yea did I say that the words in your head beat on you from the inside until you let them out and give them a life of their own? Well they do. We tend to use too many commas as well. It makes you crazy.

The words wake you up in the middle of the night and demand that you WRITE THEM DOWN! It makes you crazy.

After all that you send you new birthed and beloved baby out in to the world and into the hands of a publisher, who does not love your baby, and sends you a rejection letter! It makes you crazy.

If you finally get published then you have to worry and wonder if anyone besides your mother will buy your book, or will there just be more rejection. That keeps you up at night. It makes you crazy.

So writing is about repetitive actions that you continue to do and where you expect to get different results, voices in your head and setting yourself up for rejection and criticism. Only someone soft in the head would do it. Really I should know. It makes you crazy.

I guess the only questions is; does writing make one crazy or is one already crazy before a pen is ever touched?

I spent the weekend in St. Louis. I traveled there with my friends Star and Jay and Flat Stanley. If you don’t know who he is, look it up. Jay, who I thought liked me dubbed the trip ‘Driving Miss Owen’. At every stop he jumped from the vehicle and ran around to open my door as if I was too weak to open it for myself . My son, with whom I labored for 27.5 hours to bring into the world suggested that Jay rename the trip ‘Driving Miss Crazy’. What can I say? Children, they will break your heart every time.

But on to the real purpose of the trip; I had a book signing at a local store called the Mystic Valley in St. Louis, where I ran into some old friends, made new ones and sold some books, I met with my publisher, I filmed two video interviews to promote my books, and had dinner with M.R. Sellars and his family and some friends, twice. Now if your don’t know M.R. Sellars, he is a writer type guy and he writes murder/occult/pagan/horror stuff. He is one rather twisted guy, but nice enough. If you can overlook the fact that he know way too much about body decomposition, ways to kill people, what it takes to actually kill a human, will happily explain how the size of maggots on a body will tell you how long that body has been a body and is absolutely thrilled to look at crime scene photos. He also knows about vampires, serial killers and all manner long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night. I don’t know how he sleeps at night, and he probably leaves the light on if he does.

We had dinner at the Sellars house on Friday night, we ordered in pizza, more friends joined us, we laughed and drank away the evening and no bodies or murders were ever discussed.

On Saturday evening, we were invited for dinner again, which means that were nice enough on Friday, right? Despite the fact that the man writes horror stories for a living, he cooked dinner for us and we let him. Murv did the cooking and the fare was mostly vegeterian as he, his wife Kat, my traveling companion Star, and I are all heading in that direction. So we had roasted beets, grilled squash, sweet potatoes, wild rice with feta cheese and spinach, spagetti squash, roasted chick peas and grilled portobello mushrooms. I know I am leaving out several dishes but in short it was a feast! It was a lovely dinner, there were many great discussions, lots of stories, jokes and anecdotes. Sellars and I swapped horror stories about traveling to promote our books, I am sure that we were riveting to the others who were listening to us. We discussed the Pagan Unity Festival at length, what we all wanted to see for next year, things that we never wanted to see, potential guests to bring in as speakers and so on. There was much beer ingested and we made evil plans for the next day. All and all a good day.

Now I cannot tell you all the evil plans that we brought into reality on Sunday. I am sworn to secrecy. Just let me say that this involved Sellars, Me, Johnathan, Kat, Star, and cameras. No, you dirty minded people, we did not film porn. The rest of the participants aside, no one in their right minds would pay good money to see Sellars or me naked. Please. Our evilness made us laugh and laugh and we hope that it pleases all of you as well when it is revealed. There I have baited that hook.

On Sunday evening, after all of our hard work with cameras and scripts, we had dinner. Sellars warmed up the leftovers the night before. He added a Turkish dish that was in the fridge (what better time to get rid of leftovers than when guests are in the house right?), and combined that with some white rice. Again, we had a grand time only the crowd was smaller; Sellars, Kat, Willow, Star, Jay and myself.

About an hour after dinner, I began to feel sick to my stomach. Hard on the heels of that I developed severe pain in my stomach. I was feeling terrible and trying to decide if it was a gall bladder attack or a virus of some kind. We were all tired after the antics of the afternoon, and decided to take leave of our hosts at around 9:00 PM. At that point Sellars looked at me and asked, “Sweetie, are you alright?” I told him I was not and asked if he had any Tums. He did,I took them and we left. By the time we got to our hotel, which was about seven minutes away, I was really miserable. I staggered up to the room, Star gave me some peppermint for the nausea, and I lay down. We began to discuss what my aliment might be, had I eaten something that was causing the trouble and so forth. We decided there was not enough fat in the food I had eaten to cause a gall bladder issue and that the food we had eaten was left over from the night before, and I had not had any problems before. By now my upper lip was numb. “Except for the Turkish dish with rice”, I said. “What was in the rice?” asked Star. “Maybe Saffron,” I guessed. “Which comes from Crocuses,” she said. “Which are kin to…: I said, “Buttercups!!” we both shouted. Sellars had poisoned me! I am allergic, very allergic may I say to freakin’ buttercups. Most people think they are beautiful little spring flowers. I know better, I know that are evil little devils that want to kill me. Somehow they had recruited Sellars in their war against me!

So here is my warning to you; if you ever have dinner with a murder mystery/occult/pagan/horror type guy and he offers to cook, bring your own food.

Where do I begin to write the story of how great…oh sorry couldn’t help myself. If you do not get that reference, don’t tell me, it will only hurt my feelings by reminding me how old I am.

Okay, so this is supposed to be about me well, let’s see, where do I start? I was born in a log cab…..I walked to school up hill both ways in the snow… Oh never mind that is ancient history, how about this; I run a successful Pagan festival and have for almost thirteen years now. I have been told that I am pretty good at herding, feeding, problem solving and getting large numbers of folks to all go in the same direction at the same time. Some people told me I should write a book about it, some even insisted that I write that book. They told me that by writing about how to run a festival, I could help other people to do it well. It would also benefit the people who went to the festivals, and the authors that went as guests. In short, I would be doing a service to humanity. Hmmmm…like Mother Teresa.

Why is it that people always insist that other people write a book. If anything out of the ordinary has ever happened to you, people always say “you should write a book!”

“Wild Wolverines kidnapped me and kept me in a den under an oak tree in the great Northwest until I would teach them to line dance and sing like Garth Brooks.”

“You should write a book!” people shout. “Well,” you explain, ” I have an IQ of 42 and I can’t even spell wolverrine….wooulvrine…wowlennie…..that animal with mean claws.” Then you get a wink and a nod and a, “Yeah but you could get a ghost writer!”

If you have never written a book you have no idea what a process it is. If it can even be called a process. You have a ghost of an idea and so you sit and stare at the paper or the screen or the note book or the roll of toilet paper just hoping to be struck by you muse. Usually what happens is that you get struck by a cat paw belonging to a cat who would like some dinner “noooowwww” please. I knew that I knew what I was doing on the festival end of things. After all people came back year after year, we did not poison them or lose their children or set anything on fire. Or sure there was that one time, why can no one get over that. I digress. I knew the festival stuff, but how could I put it on paper? Where the hell would I even start?

I started and wrote about the festival on a legal pad. Then I rewrote, at one point I started over completely from scratch, then I started that over and simply rewrote the original. I turned it upside down and inside out until I was more or less happy with it. I tweaked it. I got angry at it. I cried. I laughed. I walked away from it and declared that I was done with the whole thing! Who the hell was I kidding. Everyone thinks they have a book in them, most people really do not. Who was I to think that I actually had some talent and that I could write a book that other people might want to read?! Maybe, I thought I should just run away and join the circus.

Finally, I decided that I would try it again. This time, I went to the computer and put all of my notes there. It was a process that almost drove me to drink. I had such a hard time scrolling up and down to see if I had written something that I thought I had written. Computers are foreign territory to me. But I wrote, and then, I wrote some more. Then I edited again and again and again.

Finally I thought it was ready. I made a day trip to Chicago at that point, having nothing to do with the book. I knew I would be in airports and waiting rooms and would have time on my hands. So I printed out my manuscript, stuck it in my bag and away I went. I worked on it every spare minute. But the time I got home again, I thought it was ready. I typed all the corrections into the computer and sat back and basked in the glow of a job well done. I took 2 years to get that done to my satisfaction. Elephants carry baby elephants and give birth in that amount of time!

When the manuscript was finished, I had to get someone else to transfer it on to a disk for me. I went to Kinco and shipped it off into the unknown. It was like sending a child off to college, I could hardly let go of the thing. I cried all the way back to work that day. What if it really sucked? What if they hated it? What if they decided they did not want to publish my book? Yikes!

But they did like it, they did publish it. Yea! Let’s talk about the publisher end of things for a minute. I was very lucky, I had a publisher who was interested in my project. I had made the approach, discussed the idea and was encouraged to tackle the project. Then I submitted the outline and a couple of chapters, and wonder of wonders, they liked what they read! So, away down the highway I went. Not everyone has such an easy time getting into print. Remember that and do not be discouraged.

Anyway, here we are, three years after I started, the book is in print. People are buying it, liking it, and telling their friends about it. Gosh that was not so hard, I mean really, sorta of like childbirth. You forget how painful it was. I think I might write another one.